


come, find me lying in the bed i made

by pagans_in_vegas



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, Fluff, mythology AU, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 01:16:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagans_in_vegas/pseuds/pagans_in_vegas
Summary: written for day 3 of carolnat week: mythology AU





	come, find me lying in the bed i made

I.

The first time Carol meets Natalia, she’s eleven years old, and out on her family’s annual camping trip.

She’s sharing the tent with her brother, who wouldn’t stop _snoring_, and she can’t seem to go back to sleep no matter how hard she tries, so she unzips the flap and slips out into the darkness outside the tent. The air outside is cool and heavy with the promise of a thunderstorm later that morning, and she tilts her head up, enjoying the cold breeze against her sweat-slicked face. The inky blackness of the night is slowly giving way to daylight now, and she can see the faintest streaks of pink starting to make their way across the sky – the forest surrounding them seems much less foreboding in the early dawn, the hulking, almost-sinister shadows of the trees fading into a dull, misty grey, and she scrambles her way up the trunk of the oak tree just at the edge of the clearing, sprawling herself across one of its lower branches as she waits for the rest of her family to wake.

Years later when she revisits this memory, she’ll notice how eerily _quiet _it is – it’s a forest at dawn, but where there should be the quiet chirping of birds around them and the rustling of other animals – deer, racoons, or even wild dogs and coyotes – in the forest undergrowth, there’s _nothing, _not even the whispering of the leaves in the wind.

But now – she’s oblivious to this almost-unnatural _wrongness _surrounding her, and she’s just about to close her eyes and nap up in the tree when –

It’s so faint that she just _barely _picks it up – a high-pitched, shrill scream from somewhere deeper in the forest in front of her. She raises her head from her arms and blinks sleepily, thinking for a moment that she’s misheard, but –

No, there’s another scream, louder this time; Carol almost falls out of her tree this time at the sudden bolt of terror and panic that lances through her.

They live in the suburbs, and Carol rarely spends any time in the woods – but she remembers one day, two years ago, they’d travelled upstate to camp here at their usual grounds, and Carol’s father had brought them down the trail, following the sound of a panicked screaming until they’d come across a coyote, its paw caught in a trap.

_“Illegal traps,” _she remembers her father explaining to them, pointing it out to them a safe distance away. The coyote’s nearly frothing at its mouth from fear and terror, and her heart clenches as it tries to tug itself free once more, yelping in pain – there’s blood coating the rusty metal springs of the trap around its foot, and the fur on its leg has been rubbed red and raw. _“They’re not s’pposed to trap coyotes this way.”_

_“Why?” _her brother had asked, wide-eyed and curious.

_“It’s cruel. They take too long to die.”_

She doesn’t remember what happened to the coyote afterwards, but she _does _remember the way it had shrieked at them, all shrill and panicked and so very _terrified_ – and she follows the same screams now, deeper into the forest, her heart thundering in her chest.

It’s not a coyote waiting for her at the end of the trail, this time ‘round. It’s a –

A _girl_.

It’s a _girl_, around her own age, with the sharp iron teeth of the coyote trap caught around her ankle, and she’s scrabbling at it, her fingers red and bloody; when she looks up at Carol, her eyes are wide and wild and so _desperate_ that it knocks Carol backwards for a moment and steals the breath out of her chest.

The girl’s movements still, and for a long moment, she stares across at Carol, before the faintest baying of a dog in the distance snaps her back to the present.

_“Help,” _she croaks out hoarsely, reaching out to Carol, and Carol doesn’t question – she drops to her knees, reaching out for the heavy iron cuff locked tight around her ankle; she fights back a shudder at the sight of the cruel metal teeth embedded into the girl’s skin and instead runs her fingers around the edge, looking for the spring that will release the mechanism and set her free. She can feel the weight of her brilliant green stare on her as she works, and for one long, dreadful moment, she thinks that she’s gotten it wrong, that she’d be stuck in the trap until Carol arrived with more help, but the lock gives a quiet click and falls apart in her hands.

The howling is getting louder now.

Carol catches the girl in her arms as she stumbles out of the trap, lets her lean against her while she regains her balance, and can’t help but stare – she’s so _pretty_, she thinks. The early-morning sunlight filtering though the leaves catches against her bright red hair, turns it into a beautiful fiery-gold, brilliant against her pale skin, and there’s something _unearthly _about her that makes Carol duck her head, suddenly shy.

“Thank you,” she feels a hand, warm and hesitant, rest against her wrist. “You saved me.”

She shrugs, self-conscious. “It was the right thing to do…”

“Natalia.”Natalia smiles at her, holding out her hand, and in spite of herself, Carol grins back in return and takes it.

“I’m Carol. Danvers.”

“Well met, Carol Danvers.”

They stand there for a moment, smiling stupidly at each other, until a short, sharp bark echoes through the branches, and Natalia drops her hand, her smile fading away, and Carol doesn’t even get the chance to say goodbye before she takes three steps through the trees and dissolves into the forest.

* * *

II.

The second time she runs into Natalia, she’s fifteen years old and traipsing through the forest after another argument with her parents; she crashes through the undergrowth, leaving a trail of mud and footprints in her wake as she fights her way to _her spot _at the bank overlooking the river. It’s where she likes to spend her time alone, away from the mess that’s the rest of the camp grounds; tourists rarely venture this far out into the woods anyway, and she enjoys the seclusion and the loneliness and the _quiet _here.

Except this time, she won’t be alone.

She spots Natalia as soon as she emerges from the trees and into the riverbank – it’s been four years, but she thinks that she’d recognise that red-gold hair _anywhere_. Natalia relaxes when she recognises Carol, waves a quiet greeting, and pats at the grass beside her in a silent invitation.

“Hello,” she begins simply, watching as Carol shucks her shoes aside to dip her toes into the gurgling river below. “Carol Danvers.”

“Hi, Natalia.”

They sit there quietly for a long moment, watching the rest of the forest pass them by – and Carol studies Natalia discreetly out of the corner of her eye, staring at the thick, angry-red and mottled scar that wraps around her left ankle, above the bone.

At least, she _thinks _she’s being discreet, but then Natalia turns and her lips twitch up into a knowing smile, and Carol can’t help the flush that rises up her neck and heats up her cheeks.

“You know, if you’re curious,” Natalia begins softly. “You can just _ask_.”

So Carol fishes her feet out of the water and draws her knees up to her chest when she turns to face Natalia, eyeing her. She’s wearing a thin, pale-grey dress today, slightly damp from the morning dew and the river, her hair pinned up into a long braid that reaches halfway down her back. Her shoes are nowhere to be seen, and Carol can’t help it – her gaze traces the raised red skin around her leg, and blurts out –

“Is that from the – “

“The trap, yes.”

“It looks…” She reaches out for a moment, half-wanting to touch, before pulling away, but Natalia doesn’t seem to mind; wrapping her fingers around Carol’s wrist, she tugs until her fingers are brushing against the cool skin. It doesn’t seem to hurt anymore – Natalia stiffens slightly, doesn’t react further when Carol runs her hand over the bumps and ridges marring her ankle, but Carol can’t suppress the shudder deep in her chest. “Gnarly.”

Natalia’s brilliant green eyes track her movements when Carol releases her ankle; she relaxes, her shoulders slumping as crosses her legs and tucks her feet under her, every single movement quick and neat.

“I don’t do well around iron,” she tilts her head, meeting Carol’s gaze.

“Allergies?”

Natalia laughs, the sound bright and happy. “I suppose one could put it that way, yes.”

They put away the topic for the rest of Carol’s trip, and Natalia shows her around the forest, brings her to all her favourite spots that Carol’s never seen before – there’s another clearing further away from the main trail where _no-one _ever visits, and a tiny waterfall upstream of the river, and another spot where they spend one entire afternoon otter-watching. She half-envies the way Natalia seems to stalkthrough the forest, silent and surefooted, the trees almost appearing to part way for her while Carol trips and stumbles over the root of every other tree they pass by.

“How d’you do it?” she’d grumbled, once, and Natalia had laughed, reaching out a hand to pull Carol back to her feet.

“Practice.”

The night before Carol goes home after summer, they’re sitting at the edge of the river, watching the fish dance their way between their legs, and Carol reaches out to grab Natalia’s hand.

“Spend the night with me,” she begs, half-crestfallen when Natalia shakes her head – she’d been having the time of her life with her, and doesn’t want to part ways just yet. “Please? We can have a sleepover and stay up all night and talk until I have to go.”

Natalia hesitates for a long moment, squares her shoulders, before nodding once. “Okay.”

It’s not hard to sneak Natalia past her parents and into her own tent – they’re already snug in their tent and half-asleep, and her brother barely looks up from his phone when they slink past, they collapse into a fit of giggles while Carol fumbles with the zipper, shutting them into their own little world together.

She reaches up to flick on the lamp swinging off the tent pole and blinks in the dim glow – Natalia’s face is suddenly _inches _from hers, and she swallows, feels the heat rising in her face and turns away hurriedly, hiding the flush across her cheeks.

“Here,” she pats at the ground beside her, and Natalia crawls over and settles herself beside Carol, and it suddenly strikes Carol how _out of place _Natalia looks, smiling at her all bright and graceful and so very ethereal against the dull, mundane backdrop of Carol’s daily life.

Natalia doesn’t share much, she’d learnt this days ago. She doesn’t talk about her home, or her family, or where she goes to school – but Carol is more than happy to fill the gap, telling Natalia about her brother (_“He wants to go away for college after this year.”_) and her parents (“_My dad doesn’t like it much when I wander around out here.” “Why not?” “He thinks that girls should stay home and look after the house, but Mom tells him that he’s old-fashioned, so here I am.”_) and her dreams (_“I want to move out to the city one day far away from here, where my dad can never find me.”_), the last thing she remembers telling Natalia is that she’d miss her when she goes back home before falling asleep.

When she wakes up the next morning, Natalia’s gone and she’s tucked neatly into her sleeping bag, and there’s no trace of the other girl left behind.

She takes a final glance back at the forest before her dad demands, impatiently, for her to get into their car.

_I didn’t even get to say goodbye_.

It’s three weeks later when Carol’s back at home, buried in a book about mythology before she nearly falls out of her chair when she reaches the section on fairies and fae folk.

She remembers the iron trap, its teeth buried deep in Natalia’s ankle, and Natalia’s comment, _“I don’t do well around iron.”_

_“Allergies_?” she had asked, and Carol groans, remembering the way Natalia had laughed, then; everything clicks into place suddenly, and she half-wishes she could return to the forest and seek her out and ask her if her suspicions are true.

_God, I’m a fucking idiot._

* * *

III.

Natalia turns up outside her tent the year she turns eighteen.

She’s in her tent alone this year – her parents had dropped the family tradition after her older brother had moved away to college, and although they’ve never understood her obsession with the forest, either, they haven’t stopped her from coming back without them in tow. Brunnhilde, in the tent next to hers, is still snoring away (it’s almost amazing, Carol thinks, how she can still hear her over the thunder and the rain drumming on the thick plastic canvas of their tents), and Carol’s about to close her eyes when there’s a sudden looming shadow and a quiet, insistent scratching at her tent flap that startles her _so much_, she’s out of her sleeping bag in a heartbeat, her knife in hand, half-tempted to cut her way into Brunnhilde’s tent and crawl in with her for comfort.

It takes her one long minute to calm down – because she’s _not _a wimp, okay, but it _is _a dark forest, and _old _forest, miles away from the nearest town, and she hears the legends that the locals in the town whisper about the things that stalk through the trees at night; when her blood finally stops thundering through her ears, she can hear the faintest whisper, barely audible over the sounds of the forest and the rain.

_“Carol?”_

“_Natalia?” _She blinks once, incredulously, then reaches out to undo the flap of her tent; Natalia half-crawls, half-collapses inwards and into her arms; she’s soaked through and shivering from the cold, her pupils wide and blown. The shadows outside her tent – usually so comforting and _familiar _– are suddenly strange and alien in the storm, and she zips up the tent hurriedly, squinting a little against the spray of rain against her face. It’s warm in her tent, and _safe_, and she fumbles with the knots, making sure that they’re secure before turning back to Natalia, who’s backed up against the corner and curled in on herself, and Carol feels a sudden spike of apprehension in her chest.

In all the time she’s known Natalia, she’s _never _seen her look so scared and _small _before. It makes her chest achewith a strange mix of protectiveness and _longing_, and she gives in to her heart, reaches out and pulls Natalia into her lap, ignoring the dampness that soaks through her pyjamas and to her skin, and strokes her fingers through the bedraggled wet strands of hair escaping from their usual neat braid.

“Nat,” she breathes, and Natalia buries her face into her neck, but her shivering has stopped, so Carol takes it as a good sign. “It’s okay, you’re _safe_.”

She doesn’t know how long they remain there, huddled together in the corner of her tent with Natalia wrapped up securely in her arms – it might have been _hours_, because she half-remembers hearing the storm pass overhead, the rain slowly fading into the distance, and half-remembers Natalia growing limp and slack in her arms, her breaths coming in steady puffs, tickling against the skin of her neck. She also remembers tightening her grip around Nat as she closes her eyes, half-afraid that when she wakes up, she’d find her gone again, leaving no trace of herself behind; but when the morning comes, and she blinks awake to find Nat still curled up in her arms, green eyes staring up at her, watching her as she’d slept.

“Y’know, it’s usually considered creepy to stare at people while they sleep,” her voice comes out hoarse and croaky, but Natalia doesn’t laugh – instead, she reaches out for Carol’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and Carol feels a rush of warmth bloom in her chest.

“Thank you,” Natalia whispers quietly, rubbing her thumb over the back of Carol’s hand. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Fairy-folk trouble?” The question spills from her lips before she can stop herself (though in her defence, her curiosity had been bubbling within her for _years_) – Natalia stiffens in her arms, slipping off her lap to sit across her, her face tight and drawn.

“You know.”

“I guessed,” she shrugs. “It wasn’t _that _difficult.”

“Then you should know that there are things that want to keep us out of your world – they chase us out, or hunt us down to kill us – “

“The hunters,” Carol murmurs, remembering the first time she’d met Natalia, and when Nat nods, she shivers, feeling sick and cold that the idea of _grown men _cornering Nat alone in the forest. “Why?”

“We guard the old places,” Natalia explains, her voice soft. “We stop people from hurting the land, and when we’re here, the old magic is strongest, and the forest thrives. Some people don’t want that, and they’re winning.”

“And when they do?”

“We go away.” Her eyes meet Carol’s, dark and tired and glimmering with unshed tears. “The magic leaves – it’s fading away even now, and the doorways between your world and mine will close, and I lose this place forever.”

A pause.

“I lose _you_.”

“_No._”

“I’m sorry.”

“You can come with me, I’ll bring you up to my college and you’ll be safe there, they’ll never be able to find you and you don’t have to worry – “ she doesn’t even realise that she’s begun rambling until Natalia shakes her head.

“This is where I _belong_, Carol Danvers. If I follow you – I lose _my _magic. I lose this forest, I lose my _home_.”

“But _I don’t want to lose you_.”

They fall silent for a moment; Natalia doesn’t move away when Carol leans over and cups her cheek in her hand, brushing her thumb over her cheek before tilting her head up; she doesn’t say no when Carol hovers over her, before pressing her lips to Natalia’s in a slow, sweet kiss.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she repeats again.

Their argument goes _nowhere _for the rest of the summer – when Carol goes home after summer, she goes home with Brunnhilde and a promise from Natalia to write to her, whenever she can. Natalia comes to see her off, and Carol pulls her away from prying eyes.

“I’ll miss you.”

“I know.”

“Don’t forget – “

“ – To write, I know that, too.”

But the smile on Nat’s face is fond and soft, and Carol closes her eyes when Natalia pulls her into a hug, inhaling the sharp-forest scent that clings into her, before Brunnhilde presses on the horn once, _twice_, and then Carol has to let go.

* * *

_Interlude:_

_Natalia keeps her word, and writes to Carol while Carol’s away at college, four states away; they’re long, rambling letters about how the trees are faring this year, and how many new birds hatched that spring, with precious little detail about how she’s faring, but Carol cherishes every single one of her words anyway, running her finger over the loopy cursive handwriting over the paper._

_Carol keeps hers, and goes back to the forest every summer. It’s always a relief to see Natalia, sitting at the riverbank waiting for her – they never talk about the time slowly running out for them, and spend the time walking through the land hand-in-hand; she doesn’t even complain when Natalia decides to sit her down and braid the flowers she’s been picking into her hair._

_“Come with me,” she tells Natalia at the end of every summer, holding her close, wishing that she can pull Nat into her and never let her go._

_“You can’t make me choose between my home and you,” Natalia replies, and Carol never pushes her._

_She kisses Natalia, long and sweet, before parting ways, always wondering, at the back of her mind, if she’ll ever get to see Natalia again._

* * *

IV:

She comes back alone for the last time the summer after she graduates from college, before she moves across the country and to New York for good; Natalia is waiting for her at her usual clearing this time, sitting on the oak tree at the edge of the clearing where Carol had spent so much time on, so many years ago.

“I heard you driving in,” she slips off the branch to greet her, and when Carol pulls her close, she notices with a rising concern that Natalia seems tired, now. Duller. The sharp scent of the forest doesn’t seem to cling to her as strongly as it did before, and it’s like whatever magic that had tied her to the other world had faded away, leaving something ordinary and human and _mortal _behind.

She pulls away slightly, meeting Nat’s eyes – they’re no longer that sharp, bright green that she remembers from the years before, but still brilliant all the same, and Natalia shrugs, giving her a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I’m coming with you.”

There’s a wild excitement that rises in Carol’s chest, before the accompanying guilt washes over her. “Nat, I – ”

“This forest is _dying_, Carol. The doorways are closing now, there’s just one left, and when it does – _I don’t want to lose you_.”

“Are you certain?”

And Natalia takes her hand, squeezes it once. “Yes.”

They spend the next week walking through the woods together at night. The heavy, otherworldly presence that used to hang over the trees is fainter now, and fading away, and it’s safe, Natalia tells her, for them to wander around, even without a lamp at night. She takes Carol down the winding path that leads to her home, but where there nothing there except a copse of trees, their limbs stunted and twisted into strange shapes by a force that Carol can’t begin to explain. They linger there, hand in hand, until the sun sets and the fireflies begin to emerge; there’s a weak glimmer amongst the trees, an odd, weak shimmer in the air, and Natalia watches it but doesn’t move, her face pale and determined, until it gives out entirely, and fades away into the darkness for the last time.

Carol opens her mouth to speak, but Natalia beats her to it. “Let’s go home.”

_Home _refers to the tent they share now – to the way Natalia curls up into her each night, her head tucked against Carol’s shoulder and their legs in a tangle under the sleeping bag. It’s the way Carol can relax, closing her eyes to the sound of Nat’s steady breathing in her ear, secure in the knowledge that Natalia had chosen_ her_ this time, had chosen to stay behind while the doorway back to her home had collapsed in on itself and shut, forever. It’s the way Nat works beside her, dressed in Carol’s old college t-shirt (which looks _oversized _on her), her red hair tied up in a loose ponytail, when they pack up Carol’s old car together and the way she reaches out for Carol’s hand, sitting in the passenger’s seat beside her.

Home is the car when Carol takes her long-planned road trip up from Louisiana up to New York, where she has a new job and a crappy apartment waiting for her with her name on the lease – but unlike in her plans, she has a passenger tagging along with her. Natalia’s in the seat next to her with the window wound down; the wind whips her red curls ‘round her face when she throws her head back, laughing at Carol’s terrible imitation of The Beatles when she croons along to _Here Comes the Sun _on the radio.

(She offers to drive, twice, after Carol nearly runs them off the road in the middle of the night, but Carol points out – rightfully – that she has no driver’s license, and Natalia had pouted until Carol had promised to teach her how when they’ve settled down in the city.)

It’s the way they dance around each other in the mornings, fumbling around, half-asleep, trying not to be late for work. Nat finds a job at the florist near their home, and it’s not much, but it’s a steady job that helps them afford their rent, and the old lady who runs it takes a liking to her immediately, gushing over how she manages, somehow, to bring even the sickliest plants back to life.

It’s also the way they lie together on their mattress at night, the windows thrown open to let the heat out, listening to the city pass by under them. It’s loud and chaotic and so very _overwhelming_ – a far cry from the forest Natalia had lived in all her life, Carol thinks, half-guiltily, but as though sensing her thoughts, Nat leans over her, and presses a kiss to her lips, slow and soft and _sweet_.

“I chose this,” she touches her forehead to Carol’s, and Carol closes her eyes, her adoration for the woman curled up with her welling deep in her chest, almost too much to bear. “I chose _you_.”

When she opens them again, Natalia is still staring down at her, her green eyes warm and soft. “_I love you_.”

– – –

V:

A small family pulls up in a rental car in the campground in upstate New York. It’s the middle of summer, and the children – a pair of twin girls, both red-headed and green-eyed – scramble out of the car, half-wild with excitement, tugging at their mothers’ arms.

“Your mama and I met in a place like this, many years ago,” Carol tells her daughter, who wrinkles her nose slightly at the idea of her _mother_ being young, once. She reaches out to lace her fingers with her wife’s. “Do you miss it?”

They had stopped by – a quick detour in a road trip back to Carol’s childhood home – a few years back, and the forest is gone, now, and there’s a new suburban town built in its place. Natalia tilts her head, considers her family for a moment, and shrugs.

“Not anymore. You’re _my _home.”


End file.
